


The Unwanted Houseguest

by mania_jests



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Demon!Dan, M/M, Slow Burn, human!Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mania_jests/pseuds/mania_jests
Summary: Phil was maybe a touch more lonely than he cared to admit.That didn't mean he wanted to welcome a demon and various other undesirables into his home to bring about the apocalypse.





	

“Wake up!”

Phil buried his head under his pillow.

“Up! Upupupupupup!”

A quick glance at the clock told Phil it was  _ far too early _ to be awake. The plushie on the window ledge didn’t seem to thi—

Wait.

Plushie. On the windowsill.

Sure enough, another glance confirmed its presence. Phil glared, rolling onto his other side, turning his back to the plushie. “Oh God, did I leave the back window open again?” This was asked mainly of his pillow: he wasn’t expecting any type of reply.

“Clever.”

Phil had nearly laid his head back on the pillow, but the voice brought him up short.  He paused, and glanced back over at the errant plushie.

“…Did you just talk?”

The plushie snorted—or as close to a snort as it could get. “I knew it, we’ve got a bright one here. Yeah, I talk.”

Coffee. Phil needed coffee. It was too early to deal with this without coffee.  _ Maybe I was awake, and the plushie was a hallucination? _ “You’re not a genie, by any chance?”

“Don’t be stupid.” The plushie was scornful. “I’m not one of your silly little genies. Fairytales aren’t my thing. No wishes for you, and no packets of never-ending biscuits neither. I’m on a mission. You understand how it is.”

“Not really.”

The plushie—if it was possible, and Phil doubted that it was—smirked back at him. “I’m more than a plushie.”

“You’ve said that before, so I’m thinking you’re maybe the best part of last night’s bottle of vodka getting the better of me.”

The plushie visibly swelled with tarnished pride. “Oh please, human, get a grip, would you? I’m much better than anything your mind could come up with. I’m the all-powerful Howl!”

Phil waited a moment. Nothing else was said.

“…And?”

The plushie deflated. “I’m a demon, human. A very big and powerful one. I could kill you just by stepping in your shadow. I could drive you mad just by looking you in the eyes. I could-”

“I’d believe that if you weren’t a  _ plushie _ right now.” Perhaps laughing in the face of the plushie’s spiel wasn’t the most diplomatic of moves.  _ Do I really want to be discovered dead in my bed, still wearing flannelette pancake-patterned pyjamas several inches too short for me? _  “And Howl is difficult to say.  I’m calling you Dan.”

“Excuse me?” started the plushie indignantly.  “I said my name was Howl.”

“Yeah, Dan Howl,” said Phil.  “Got a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“How dare you not honour my name-“

“Seriously, you’re a plushie.  You’re in no shape to be making demands.”

The plushie sighed. “Well, that’s the trouble with inter-dimensional travel, now isn’t it? I was twenty feet tall, human. I had horns and a roar that could shake the world. And now…” It trailed off, lifting one wool-stuffed foot and staring at it forlornly. “Well, now I’m substantially less than twenty feet tall, to put it mildly.” The plushie appeared to return from its little sojourn down Memory Lane. “Anyway, here’s the deal. You’re going to help me, and in return, I’ll spare your life when the new world order comes, okay? I think that’s pretty generous of me.”

Phil didn’t laugh this time. “Depends. Assuming for one moment that I take you seriously, and I don’t, but hypothetically, what do I need to do?”

“You…are going to help me bring about the apocalypse.”

Phil couldn’t help himself. He laughed so hard that he fell from the bed, rolled from side to side and chortled until he was miserable with exhaustion.

‘Dan’ looked on, as dejected as Phil had ever seen him. “See, it’s the part where I’m a plushie that ruins it, isn’t it? If I were a proper demon, you’d cower and agree, no?”

Phil stared up at Dan from his new home on the floor. “If you were still a demon, you wouldn’t need my help at all.” He thought about the plushie’s proposal for a moment. “And no, I’m not going to help you end the world.”

Dan tapped one foot in agitation. “More will come, you know. I’m not going to be the only demon on this planet. Hell dimension, human. Scary stuff.”

A thought occurred to Phil and he sat up.  “And if they do come through from this Hell dimension…thing…”

“Yeah?” The plushie had perked up now, in anticipation of a question informed by tardy fear finally arrived on the radar.

“…Will they all be plushies?”

Dan looked uneasy. It shifted from foot to foot, and glanced to the side as it pondered the answer.

“No. Not really. But they aren't going to be demons, either.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

The plushie began to pace, or attempt to: Phil privately labelled it as a sort of anxious waddle. “Well, we thought if we left  _ The Book _ around, then things would sort themselves out, you know? Humans are stupid, right? Someone finds The Book, asks it a stupid question, and BAM! Demons conquering the Earth!”

“…But?” Phil prodded.

The plushie shuffled. “Well, I think we might have assumed a little too much. The Book is…sentient, is what you’d call it, human. And it might have gotten…mad. Given the nomads the wrong line.” The plushie spoke in a garbled language for a minute, before clearing its throat. “There, you see?”

“Not really,” Phil admitted.

“It doesn’t so much translate to, ‘ _ I summon thee to this plane for conquering _ ,’ so much as it says, ‘ _ I order thee to this plane to inhabit small mammals and other objects _ .’”

The plushie was indignant when Phil once again slithered back to the floor in a pile of limbs and laughter. “This, human, is why you don’t let amateurs handle delicate spells. One misplaced accent.  _ One _ . Now the Supreme Leader is a Christmas tree with rave lights.”

Let it be known that there is nothing funny about an evil plushie inhabiting your place of residence.

Within two hours, Phil had to lock away the entire cutlery set, the fine china, and especially anything that resembled alcohol. The fridge was a lost cause, Dan having claimed it as his own sometimes ago; disappearing inside with what had once been a tub of ice cream. Phil had hoped desperately that the bloody creature was lactose intolerant.

Or that it went straight to his thighs. Either would do.

After that brief period of warfare, things seemed to settle into a state of somewhat normalcy—if you could call waking up most mornings to a plushie clumsily attempting to poison your breakfast normal. Dan seemed to mope as the week went on, much to Phil’s relief, becoming more interested in the television than in assassinating him.

Wednesday turned into Friday.

On Saturday morning, a cactus turned up on Phil’s doorstep.

Phil wouldn’t have been suspicious, really, were it not for the fact that his newly-arrived houseguest seemed rather…agitated by the pot plant. Before this, he would have readily assumed that someone from town had noticed his lack of furnishings or that one of his friends was taking a dig at his lack of anything resembling a green thumb.

It  _ talked _ .

Bristled was the politically-correct term for it, since it didn’t seem to have a mouth so much as make a noise by rubbing its spikes together that, to one with a sufficiently vivid imagination, might have approximated the particulars of speech.

“Hello,” it said, a good deal more politely than his other guest. “Am I to understand that Howl is within this establishment?” Phil glanced behind himself, to see the plushie shaking its head furiously from side to side. Tilting his own head in confusion, he murmured, “I thought you wanted an apocalypse?”

The plushie sneered. “That thing is a do-gooder. A wimp. She only wants to be  _ loved _ and  _ cared for _ .”

He obviously spoke too loudly, because the cactus spoke up again. “Howl! Oh, you’re here! I couldn’t find anyone, and it was dark, and there were birds and they wanted to-”

Phil turned back to the plant, a corner of his mouth twitching desperately towards the sky above. Heaving a sigh, he stood aside to let it pass, “Why don’t you come in? Don't try anything; I have a pair of hedge clippers around here somewhere.”

And then there were two.

It didn’t take very long before an array of increasingly inane objects began to turn up. On Sunday, a pot plant inquired, in an incredibly small voice, if this was the correct residence. Phil didn’t bother asking the by-now redundant question, “Correct residence for what?”

Two dogs on Monday morning, a roll-top desk in the afternoon. Phil’s sleep was interrupted that night by a washing machine surreptitiously attempting to fit through the front window.

There was a commotion on Tuesday night, even though Phil just rolled over and went back to sleep. He’s not sure what exactly happened, but on Wednesday Dan was strutting around in a fedora, and there were bloody handprints on the lid of the washing machine. Occasionally, something would weakly thump from inside it, but the washer would just start going into “Spin Dry” and the person—assuming it  _ is _ a person—went quiet again. Phil was suppressing the urge to run screaming down the grocery store, and explain that he was being terrorized by a homicidal washing machine.

By the end of the week, Phil was beginning to suspect a particularly unpalatable truth: his house was becoming the central headquarters for an invasion of demons-turned-animate-slash-inanimate objects. He put his foot down when a miniature horse with a monkey on its back requested entrance. Phil sent them around to the backyard, before he made something of an effort to corner the ever more elusive Dan.

“Just what exactly is going on here?”

The plushie seemed rather annoyed that he’d actually asked it anything. “Human, this isn’t  _ my _ fault.”

Phil went to the kitchen counter, and withdrew a large knife from the block. He then gave the plushie a rather pointed look.

Dan tutted disapprovingly. “Okay, the gypsies did the incantation out of The Book, yeah?  But you let  _ them _ in.” It gestured with a wool-stuffed arm towards the lounge area, from which emanated the sound of several household appliances attempting unsuccessfully to communicate.

“He has a point. Words have power.” That particular piece of insight came from Phil’s newly repotted cactus, also residing in the kitchen. Susan the Fourth—as the cactus had aptly named itself—was proving to be something of a reliably unfortunate casualty, having suffered unduly every time the other occupants of the house got lousy with frustration at their predicament. Phil had begun, in a show of desperate humour, tagging its lineage onto its name with every dive it took that ended with a broken pot.

However, Phil still wasn’t getting it. “So, because I let them in…what?”

“Human, the only reason they’ve set up camp here is because opening up your home to Spiky here meant an automatic invitation to everyone else.”

Phil raised the knife. “And that doesn’t apply to you because why, exactly?”

“Because I don’t ask. Rules of the game don’t apply to me, human.”

All Phil wanted to do right now was go back to bed and wake up to find everyone gone. He lowered his head into his hands. “Then tell me the rules, Dan. Tell me how to make them  _ go away _ .”

The plushie seemed to ponder the order for a long while, judging by its silence. “I don’t know...” It reeked of stubborn refusal.  _ Dan knew _ . Phil raised the knife, and the plushie hurried to correct itself. “ _ But _ , The Book did it, so it would know how to undo it.”

“And  _ where _ is The Book?”

The room went silent. Phil waited. They stared at him—well; the ones with eyes did, anyway. There was a sudden feeling of pressure in the room, as though someone had begun to squeeze down. It grew, a crushing force, until…

“Blood,” said Dan.

Phil immediately felt queasy and he desperately hoped he had misheard.  “What?”

“I need human blood,” clarified Dan.

Phil suddenly regretted taking hold of the knife in the first place.  He shut his eyes tightly for a few seconds, before re-opening them.  “How much blood we talking?”

“Just a drop.”

 

Phil did not want to do this.  He said as such.  “I  _ really _ don't want to do that.”

 

The plushie shrugged.  “D’you want me to find the book or not?”

 

“Can't we just scrape the blood off the washing machine-?”

 

Phil had no time to think when Dan unceremoniously threw Susan the Fourth in his general direction.  Susan shrieked and Phil, somehow, caught her before she could become Susan the Fifth.  A sharp, but brief pain shot through his palm.

 

A drop of blood fell to the floor.

 

Phil would have felt queasy at the mere sight, but found himself distracted by the plushie waddling to the red spot to stand on it.  He frowned. 

 

“What are you doing-?”

 

He was interrupted again by a thunderous crack and suddenly the plushie was no more.

 

In his place stood a man who, annoyingly, was taller than Phil.  A brunette with brown eyes and dimples and an expression of mild glee.

 

It was unquestionably the demon plushie in a human form.  It was thankfully clothed.

 

Phil stared at him dumbly.  “You're not twenty feet tall.”

 

The glee faded away.  “Your mum's twenty feet tall.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Whatever,” he replied flippantly.  Dan suddenly clapped and rubbed his hands together.

 

A book, hard-cover, toppled backwards off a shelf. The pressure immediately released, the occupants going back to their noisy and potentially useless attempts at communication. With a self-satisfied laugh, Dan walked in the direction of the fallen volume. “That’s The Book, Human.”

Phil wasn’t sure that he wanted to go near it, but Susan was practically squeaking in excitement, and even Dan seemed to be enthusiastically regarding the bound volume. With a sigh, Phil scooped up the cactus in one arm, the book up in the other, and plopped down onto the couch, pointedly ignoring the very mild pain in his hand.

“Wheeeeee!” Cried the cactus. Phil regarded it with affection for a moment—before all of the drama with Dan had started, Phil had yet quite realized the degree to which he had allowed his own isolation to grow. He cleared my throat hastily, and glanced down at The Book.

“So. How do I do this?” He glanced from one to the other. When no answer was forth-coming, he opened his mouth to repeat the question, before being  _ shush _ ed by Dan.

If Phil hadn’t been stuck between a former plushie demon and a cactus, he would have retreated to watch The Book from a good, safe distance. However, pinned as he was, he remained with the leather-covered text on his lap. Another glance down revealed it to be…rippling. 

Susan made what sounded like a happy, cooing noise. The Book immediately reacted, the smooth front cover warping into a title.

“ _ Volume VII of Possessed Flora:  Caring for Cacti _ ?” Phil read out, raising an eyebrow. Susan made another happy noise.

“The Book and Spiky there go way back,” Dan informed him, eyes rolling. With a disdainful sigh, he tapped The Book. “I thought we had a deal, you over-decorated guide to the delights of papier-mâché! A plushie?!”

The title faded back into the cover immediately. Susan’s disappointed sigh went unnoticed as The Book flipped to the inner title page.

There was a pause. Then, in a large, scrawling font, as if a hand was scrawling across the page:

_ “Susan thought some softness would do you some good.” _

Pandemonium immediately erupted as Dan went not, as Phil had expected, for The Book, but for Susan, who willing chose to take a dive off the couch arm, howling the entire way down, “ _ I didn’t ask it to do anything! _ ”

Phil went for the pot plant before it could rename itself for a fifth time, using his other hand to stave off a furious plushie. “Hold it, hold it!” Retrieving the plant before it slipped from his grip, Phil gave Dan a shove. “Settle!”

Indignant, the demon huffily went back to The Book. Ensuring Susan was once more safely ensconced on the couch, je turned back to The Book.

Obviously, it could understand speech. That made things somewhat easier.

“Did you send all these objects to me?”

The writing came quicker, now. 

 

_ “I encouraged them to find a single residence _ .”

That was a  _ yes _ , then.

“Can you get rid of them?”

_ “Why would I even consider such an act? They are here. It is as Howl intended.” _

Phil reached over to the coffee table. “Look, I don’t play games with enchanted notepads.” He retrieved the lighter he had placed there earlier, when he’d been seriously considering taking up smoking to cope with the stress. “You send them back to your Hell dimension, and I won’t do anything brash.” Phil clicked on the lighter. The flame immediately flared up.

_ “I can send most of them back. With a few exceptions. Is that agreeable?” _

It was mildly amusing that The Book was back-peddling as fast as it could, but there was time enough for laughing when the possessed items were  _ out _ of his house. “So long as that washing machine goes, I don’t care. Go for your life.”

Dan was already forming a remarkably loud objection, but The Book seemed to care very little, pages beginning to roll rapidly backwards. Phil found his eyes drawn to the pages, blurring…blurring…blurring into black.

Phil blinked. He was standing at the front door to what appeared to be his house…if a herd of elephants had stampeded through it. The front door hung by one hinge. So much for a solid oak panel—did the warranty hold up under claims that it couldn’t withstand the righteous anger of a washing machine? Two windows were shattered, and he could see a number of his possessions strewn across the floor.

But, everything was gone. The dogs, the monkey, the homicidal washing machine—gone. They appeared to have also liberated the blender from its life of indentured servitude, which was fine, except for the fact that the blender hadn't, in fact, been possessed in the first place. Phil fought the urge to cheer.

“Ahem.”

Phil turned to regard the solemn looking demon in his doorway. “Still here?” He was surprised.

Dan looked somewhat resentful. “Don’t look so pleased. I’ll have another shot at this world domination thing. You watch.”

Phil fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Of course. And to think, I thought you were going soft.”

A polite cough stopped the banter from continuing, and Phil glanced towards the kitchen counter, only to see what was once Susan the Fourth.

Covered in small pink flowers.

“Oh God, what happened to you? I thought you were supposed to leave?”

The cactus rustled at him, blossoms opening a little. “But I bloomed! The Book made me bloom!” It protested. “Look! I’m…I’m…what am I?”

Phil wasn’t exactly impressed, but he thought he would try for politeness.  “You’re pink.”

“Exactly! I’m-what? Pink? I’m pink?”

Phil left Dan in the kitchen to placate the distressed cactus, which was already wilting. The Book was sitting on the coffee table, disguised as a fairly innocent-looking cookbook. Phil eyed it for a moment.

“A few exceptions, hmm?”

The Book flipped open to a fresh page. 

 

_ “I enjoy making beings happy. Deny it as you may to those two, but they have brought some happiness to your life.” _

“I don’t know that I’d go that far. How did turning Dan into a plushie make him happy?”

_ One day, he will understand.  He will learn in time. _

Phil waited.

_ “And the Supreme Leader wanted him out of mischief. I occasionally fulfil dual purposes. Now, find me a book stand. I can’t get a decent view of anything from here!” _


End file.
